12.5 Inch GOTO Equatorial

The Back Story

I covered the story of this scopes history in my about section above, check it out.

Getting it Out After Many Years Of Bad Storage

Stellafane 1993.

Mount and OTA covered in dirt. Look away if you have a weak stomach.

It's bad.

Old RA gear with clock drive motor. Unknown maker of the gear. It was picked up out of a magazine classified in the early 90's.

The board with wheels that has been used to move it around for years.

OTA out of it's corner.

The rings my Great Uncle modified with custom pads for the OTA diameter.

Back At My Old Workshop

Assembled for the first time in over 15 years.

Pulled the optics out for cleaning and inspection.

Caked on dirt in the OTA tube.

My father cleaning the secondary the only thing that had some sort of cover on it.

Healthy coating of dirt.

Cleaned.

The mirror is still perfect after all these years.

Machined a place for the motorized focuser cable to mount to.

Machined a spacer block to go in place of the old school DEC slow motion assembly.

Perfect fit.

Old JMI Focuser with a shot DC motor.

Made a bracket to mount a Nema stepper to the focuser.

Focuser mounted back up.

Power supply box. 15a 24v PSU for the mounts drive with a 12v 10a step down regulator for everything else.

Engraved the front panel.

Sheet metal tray for the power supply.

Fresh coat of paint.

My first Onstep equitorial mount drive.

Machined holes for the Onstep connectors.

Birds nest.

My first Arduino focuser controller.

Arduino dew heater system.

Dew heater controller with temperature and humidity sensor.

Removed the old Hurst clock drive motor and machined an adapter for a 400 step Nema 17 stepper motor.

Machine a bracket for the dec axis for the new Byers gear.

Ed Byers does fantastic work. His drive gears are works of art.

Old counter weight knob wouldn't clean up so I turned a new one.

Machined some mounts for the guide scope.

Fit's perfect to the OD of the tube.

Testing the RA stepper has enough torque to move all the weight.

All back together right before tear down and cleaning.

My father came over to help.

Mounted the polemaster.

Disassembled.

Fresh paint on the legs.

I had no way to move the azimuth of the telescope for polar alignment. So I had to make a decision with no turning back.

I cut the mounts main tube in half, then make some sort of device that would be sturdy but allow rotation with the ability to clamp it down.

Cutting the material for the device.

Bottom piece with delrin guide.

The device.

1.250" pointed shaft that inserts into a clamping mechanism with two methods of clamping, A 1/4-20 knob delrin tipped for tension for fine adjustment and two internal bolts with access outside to draw the main clap together.

I can't budge it when it's clamped.

Reassembly.

Getting the back focus figured out for the guide scope.

Preforming an astro modification on my 450D.

Camera Mounted.

Bracket in use.

After removing the NGC max computers encoder pulleys, I had to turn a spacer to take up the gap left behind.

First Light

It just fits.

Took it to my Girlfriends parents house. See the story about this scope to find out how it went.

2017 Black Forrest Star Party

Made a box a week before the trip to keep it safe.

NGC 891 only 1 hour of exposure with the 450D attached. This is still one of my favorite picture I've ever taken.

Eagle Nebula.

1.5 Hours on the Veil.

Orion Nebula.

Omega Nebula

M33

Fast Forward To 2019

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